How Do I Join the Knights of the Order?

Since I began making posts about our army of suicide Catalysts, I have been receiving EVEmails from people interested in joining our gank fleets. Back when the New Order was all about bumping, things were simpler: An aspiring bumper could simply go to a New Order mecca (or any system, really), get into a bumping ship, and bump miners. Since bumpers could operate solo, and since they could not harm each other, there was no need for trust, or even cooperation.

Gank fleets are different, since mining ships typically require multiple gankers working together. Our Knights, by design, operate in teams. This means an aspiring New Order ganker needs to hook up with other Agents. There's also an element of trust involved, since a rebel could try to infiltrate a gank fleet.

The potential for a false Agent to do damage isn't that great. A saboteur can't fire at his fellow gankers when they undock (due to undock invulnerability), or while they're in warp. I suppose a fake Agent's only real chance would be to try shooting at other Agents during the gank itself, which would be of limited usefulness given a suicide Catalyst's short life expectancy. Or they could try warning the targets (who may be AFK). Either way, the fake Agent would be immediately burned, and at best they would botch a gank.

Even so, gank fleet commanders are likely to be wary about bringing strange new members into the fold. Thus far, our fleets have been comprised of bumpers' alts, and those for whom the bumpers have vouched. Yet the continued growth of our strength does require bringing in new gankers, just as we have always welcomed new bumpers. New gankers are very valuable, even if one can't be certain of their loyalty: By design, the ganker alts will be new characters, and even their mains will come from all over EVE.

It's a puzzle, to serve both the need for security and the need to welcome new gankers. What's the answer?

Aspiring Knights, if they have no preexisting connection to the New Order--in other words, random readers of this blog--must prove themselves. They must win the trust of the preexisting gankers/bumpers. The bar shall be set low--just high enough to make it impractical or not worth it for a saboteur to try.

First, an aspiring Knight should go to the New Order channel (channel: minerbumping, password: 315), so he has a chance of encountering our Agents. He should train and fit out a Catalyst, and be prepared to present himself before our Agents. After all, if you're going to be a ganker, you need a Catalyst anyway. Next, he should have a bio that declares his support for the New Order. Only a prideful rebel would balk at such a thing.

And finally, he should be willing to make a sacrifice. I refer to this as "Baptism by Concord". At the direction of the Agents in system, he should use his Catalyst to attempt a solo gank upon a Code-violating miner. An Agent will tell him which miner to shoot, to avoid bringing Concord to the wrong spot, and potentially to help clear a Concord squad that needs moving. A miner in an asteroid belt will usually do the trick.

A saboteur who intends to help the miners would therefore be required to attack a miner, and would lose a Catalyst. He would also need to swallow his pride and pledge loyalty in his bio, plus take direction from Agents. In other words, causing more trouble to himself than any Agent he might attack in the future.

Baptism by Concord wouldn't likely result in the death of the miner being attacked, since it would just be one Catalyst. It would serve as a picture of the ganker's future, embracing death in order to bring enlightenment to miners through the use of force.

There are additional tokens of loyalty that an aspiring Knight can provide. Though not necessary, they would serve as badges of trust. These would include having a character who is more than a day or two old, and being a shareholder in the New Order. These are not requirements, but would certainly be steps a saboteur is unlikely to take.

There you have it. I will link this post on the Become an Agent page. If you're an Agent and you get requests to join from people you know and trust, these steps can be skipped. If an unfamiliar character shows up and announces his intention to join, please refer him or her to this post. As always, bumpers can be trusted, but since ganker alts are trained specifically for Catalyst skills, we cannot expect aspiring gankers to become bumpers. The instructions set forth in this post should be sufficient.

Long live the New Order, which provides a solution to every problem!